Diaspora Co-founder Dies At 22

phaedrus5001 writes "Tech Crunch is reporting that one of the co-founders of Diaspora, Ilya Zhitomirskiy, has passed away. He was only 22. At the moment, the cause of his death is unknown."

Comments

His Last Wishes

[Drewcool]

Spread his ashes to the wind.

Re:His Last Wishes

[joebagodonuts]

ORLY?

Re:His Last Wishes

[joebagodonuts]

Neither artificial, nor intelligent - at least according to some :). I suspect the reason it - Diaspora (software) - didn't show up is because I didn't capitalize it.

Causes?

[justforgetme]

Very sad news, not only because of his vision and the fact that he was a good geek but just because 22 is way too soon.

Any news on the causes yet?

Re:Causes?

[Toy G]

Some Twitter posts (pre-dating the "official" announcement by more than 12 hours) mentioned suicide.

Re:Causes?

[somersault]

Tom, is that you?

And I definitely think trying to execute the idea is worth a lifetime of talk about ideas. All the time you spend posting "way too often" could be spent coding, or at least guiding others on an open source project if you really have all the architectural issues worked out.

Re:Causes?

[bug1]

"Suicide is the action of selfish people"

No, http://www.suicide.org/suicide-is-not-a-selfish-act.html

Re:Causes?

[TheRaven64]

And I definitely think trying to execute the idea is worth a lifetime of talk about ideas

Unfortunately, Diaspora always seemed to fall into the latter category. Lots of UI stuff (none of it original - designing a good UI is hard, copying an existing UI is easy), but no attempt to address any of the problems in that space that are actually difficult, such as how should the network be federated in a way that doesn't allow malicious nodes to harvest information, scales to hundreds of millions of users, and doesn't have a single point of failure.

Re:Causes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I scanned the postings for "Mafia", found it, that's all I need to know.

Re:Causes?

[Attila Dimedici]

They do not actually present a case that suicide is not selfish, they merely assert that it is not selfish. The argument for saying that suicide is selfish is: committing suicide is saying that ending the pain that I am in is more important than not causing pain to those who love me. Or to put it another way, my wants are more important than the wants of those who love me.

Re:Causes?

[The Askylist]

When you're in such a state that you're actively considering ending your life, rational consideration of the feelings of others isn't at the top of your list of capabilities. It's a confusing and frightening place to be.
.

Trust me on that - I've had Bipolar type 2 for the last 30 years or so. When I'm functioning properly, I can see the effect the illness has had on those around me - when I'm on a major down, nothing apart from the endless spiral of negative introspection exists.

It's not selfish - it's mental hell caused by $deity knows what. Meds help, but if it's the first big down then you don't even seek help (I didn't seek help until I was 40, and that was only through having a partner who knew what was happening).

Applying rational criteria to what is a most irrational condition is pushing the bounds of rationality itself. :-)

Re:Causes?

[Noexit]

If I had mod points you'd get them. That's the most precise explanation I've ever read. Someone who hasn't been there simply cannot understand it, and then once you're there, you cannot see any alternatives.

Re:Causes?

[Attila Dimedici]

Whether a behavior is rational or not has no bearing on whether it is a selfish behavior or not. Once again, you fail to actually make an argument for suicide not being selfish, you merely state that the person is motivated by irrational thought processes. I agree that depression is a terrible condition that causes people to behave irrationally. In many cases, people suffering from depression behave in outrageously selfish behaviors that are well short of suicide.
As a matter of fact, I suspect that many people's depression gets worse because people around them tell them it is ok to behave selfishly because they have a mental disorder. It is not ok to behave selfishly, even if the individual is unable to rationally understand that they are doind so. There is a feedback loop related to people's moods and behaviors. If you act depressed, you are likely to be depressed. Once you are depressed, you are more likely to act depressed. This creates an ever deepening cycle. On the other hand, if you act happy, you are likely to be happy. This creates the reverse effect. Unfortunately, some people have depression that does not respond to this approach. Those people may be suffering from influences beyond their control (chemical inbalances in the body are one possible explanation).
I will repeat. Just because someone is unable to rationally understand that their behavior is selfish, does not mean that their behavior is not selfish.

Re:Causes?

[The Askylist]

I wasn't trying to make any claims about the selfishness or otherwise of suicide - merely trying to give you an insight into how the application of rational standards to what is an irrational condition maybe isn't valid. For what it's worth, I think making value judgements about the actions of other beings is unsound - the only motivation and reasoning processes anyone can truly understand are those that they experience, and everything else is inference at best.

.

But hey - go ahead and call it selfishness if you like.

Re:Causes?

[Attila Dimedici]

You are correct, all we can judge are results. One should judge others on the basis of their actions, not their perceived thoughts. There are very few cases where someone committing suicide does not result in more suffering in others than it alleviates in others (alleviating the suffering of the one commtting suicide does not count in the balance for considering whether or not the behavior is selfish).

Re:Causes?

[Taevin]

Flip that statement around: claiming that suicide is selfish is proclaiming that the temporary grief I will experience by the suicide of a loved one is more important than the constant suffering of that loved one. Or to put it another way, my wants are more important than the wants of those I love.

It's the same thing. I don't think you can so easily find and take a moral high ground in such a complex philosophical issue. I think most people would agree that anyone contemplating or attempting suicide needs help, I'm just not sure that insulting someone in such a fragile mental state by calling them selfish is very helpful.

Re:Causes?

[Attila Dimedici]

I do not agree that those who desire that someone not committ suicide are necessarily selfish in that desire. However, that is irrelevant to whether or not the act of suicide is selfish. Whether those who care about a potential suicide are selfish or not has no impact on whether or not the act of taking one's own life is selfish.
Basically, not only do I disagree with your argument, but it has no bearing on the point I made. It is possible for those who wish someone to not committ suicide to be selfish and for the person committing suicide to be selfish as well.

Re:Causes?

[luis_a_espinal]

Very sad news, not only because of his vision and the fact that he was a good geek

Which vision?

but just because 22 is way too soon.

Any news on the causes yet?

Any age is way too soon for anyone active in anything and/or loved by someone. RIP to the guy and his relatives, but some of his e-sycophants herald the news as if he was Dennis Ritchie or Dijkstra. Diaspora was dead on arrival before the first line of code was typed. The he problem statement, the suggested solution, the execution of it, and the coding of it, the very concept behind it were severely flawed and doomed to failure. For anyone that reads this and who wants to learn how to write and deliver software for a living (and I'm not talking about anything revolutionary, just plain-vanilla-coding-that-brings-the-bread-home), you should do well to study Diaspora as a case-study on what not to do.

I have no problems with people expressing condolences to the deceased, but I do have a problem elevating the status and mysticism of something that wasn't.

Re:Causes?

[Wain13001]

How is it not selfish to stand there and watch someone you love suffer to such extreme degrees that they no longer see effective living solutions as even possible and then NOT want them to do anything about it because "you'll miss them." or you feel like "you need them." Fuck they're feelings and suffering, they should go on living under extreme stress and suffering just for me!

Selfishness is always selfish in both directions, it depends purely on the perspective one chooses to see it with.

Is a battered woman selfish for leaving her husband who needs her? Where do you draw the line?

My life, my choice, and no matter how much you think you understand, the truth is you don't get to know what it's like and I can't explain it to you...you'll never know...you are not me...it is impossible for you to know what it's like.

Re:Causes?

[Attila Dimedici]

How is it not selfish to stand there and watch someone you love suffer to such extreme degrees that they no longer see effective living solutions as even possible and then NOT want them to do anything about it because "you'll miss them." or you feel like "you need them." Fuck they're feelings and suffering, they should go on living under extreme stress and suffering just for me!

Yes, that would be selfish. However, that is not the position, or feeling of all of the people who love those who choose to commit suicide. And it is irrelevant to the question of whether or not committing suicide is selfish. Whether or not the other person is selfish does not determine whether or not one's actions are selfish.
As to your battered woman example, the answer is (as a general rule, there are certainly exceptions) no she is not selfish for leaving. A man who physically abuses those who are weaker than him has a problem that needs to be addressed. If the woman he is abusing leaves him, there is a greater chance that he will recognize that need and get the help he needs.

Re:Causes?

[hazah]

I wonder how this argument sounds to say... a samurai. A real one that is. How do you explain that philosophy away? It is a path that seeks death. Death is the ultimate goal. Death not being a negative, simply a place of "final state". I mention them because suicide, to this culture, is an honorable act, and to fail to commit it (out of fear) is an insult, is selfish, and is cowardly. Though this thought is not mainstream -- that culture is still alive. It is composed of people you come across every day (not that you'd see it). I really do wonder, what is the argument for someone of that conviction, to call them selfish?

More to the point, if death is seen as a negative, then it is logical for anyone that considers it so to be repulsed by it. This does not, however, speak for people that have accepted a different conviction of the subject matter.

Re:Causes?

[justforgetme]

Ok, I will agree on the activity clause but the rest of that sentence is plain wrong.

Anyway, maybe I chose the wrong wording or maybe you read it the wrong way. I'm not implying that he was a pioneering visionary of unmapped technological planes or anything the like. When you say somebody has "vision" you are describing a supportive stance to an ideal or paradigm. Ilya was, as far as I recall, deeply interested in decentralized social computing. A lot of people (maybe even me) like that paradigm a lot, you could say that others will share that vision.

So sorry if I scratched some unhealed wound, but I did not any of the things you accuse.
Also, thanks for the tip on market research. It won't be of any use to me but it is a point worth of making.

Re:Causes?

[Attila Dimedici]

That is a more complicated situation than the one that I was addressing. However, I believe that there is an argument to be made that even in such a culture committing suicide is, generally, selfish. It is just that such selfish action has been made the cultural norm.

Re:Causes?

[hazah]

Seek not the end itself, but that which brings the end to you. It seems that you've reduced life to "existing without the ability to perish", which hangs on the wishes of others. (That they're your family is not lost on me). Also, since there is nothing to suggest that you're living your current life one way or the other, certain assumptions are made based on generality.

I'm not sympathetic simply because I know nothing about you, so this is NOT advice.

I do not respect any argument of "tediousness". That is insulting to the rest of the human race. Even the rich, while they drown in their own riches, must survive the pettiness of their peers. Life is a deadly game any way you slice it.

Why are you not a fire-fighter?

Why are you not a cop

Why are you not a soldier?

etc...

Any one of these can bring death to you, while you're standing on your own two feet.

I say this as someone who is trying to morph my life around this very concept (I am far from successful).

All I can see from what you said is: You seek to tell others that you did not succeed. You seek to tell them that you haven't bothered trying to. You see, if you were to perish by doing the impossible, then you get to die for something, rather than some lame wallowing in your own sorrow.

You are not ready nor worthy of death.

Re:Causes?

[hazah]

Hmmm, as a point of curiousity, what would you say the main "not to do" points were?

Re:Causes?

[hazah]

It could be seen as selfish if you have expectation that the person must survive (for whatever ideological reason you may have). But I think that that onus then is on yourself for expecting such things, and therefore the selfishness is with yourself. It is selfless to realize your own uselessness. (Uselessness is a very loaded word in this case).

Re:Causes?

[Attila Dimedici]

No, it is not a matter of being "seen as selfish". It is selfish. In a culture such as that of the Samurai it is more complicated. However, by committing suicide, the person makes themselves the center of events.

It is selfless to realize your own uselessness.

No one is useless.

Re:Causes?

[mug funky]

you speak as if mental illness is not treatable.

of course, it's not perfect, but i think there are avenues that can be pursued well before giving up on the known for the great unknown, at a great price to those who care for you.

see a shrink, try all the meds that are on offer, if those don't work, try some illegal ones (MDMA, LSD, psilocybin), THEN tell me life's not worth living.

if you have the energy to argue on slashdot, you have the energy to seek help.

Re:Causes?

[Taevin]

Basically, not only do I disagree with your argument, but it has no bearing on the point I made.

My argument was directed at and even paraphrased the point you made, which is that "suicide is selfish because it's like saying that my wants are more important than my loved ones' wants." Perhaps that's even true, but my demonstration was to turn that argument back around and it works just as well. What I was hoping to illustrate by that is that phrasing the topic of suicide in terms of selfishness is not helpful or accurate.

It is possible for those who wish someone to not committ suicide to be selfish and for the person committing suicide to be selfish as well.

This should simply reinforce the point that I'm making which is that the selfishness or non-selfishness of a person really has nothing to do with whether or not they will commit suicide, nor with their motivations behind that act.

Re:Causes?

[Attila Dimedici]

This should simply reinforce the point that I'm making which is that the selfishness or non-selfishness of a person really has nothing to do with whether or not they will commit suicide,...

No, it does not. To commit suicide is to behave selfishly. You may argue it however you want, but someone who commits suicide is acting selfishly. Unless you think that committing suicide is a good method of dealing with depression arguing that it is not selfish serves no useful purpose.

Re:Causes?

[hazah]

No, it is not a matter of being "seen as selfish".

Hell of a claim to make. Granted my claim is just as grand, but I have to ask; do you really understand this culture? Quite bluntly, it's a non event. In that context you do NOT become the centre of events, ever (it happens far too often). The only attention you would get is a judgment amongst your peers. The only decision of that judgment is whether your actions are honorable or not in the circumstances surrounding your death based on the actions taken and the reasons behind them.

Uselessness, as stated is a very loaded word. I urge you to understand what is meant by it in this specific context. I recommend that you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagakure. It is quite revealing. Think about it, what we're doing on this forum is, for the most part, quite useless. The chances of you and I actually gaining something from this conversation are practically none. It is more likely that we will continue to exist and live out our live the exact same way as if this conversation never happened. In this sense, it is beneficial to understand the meaning of uselessness.

I would wager that the view you're holding had been indoctrinated by the Judeo-Christian view of suicide. I find that it is not universal.

Ultimately, the fundamental view is this: No one deserves the right to live any more than anyone deserves the right to take life. The fact that you're alive does not warrant respect of it. It is about both freedom and freedom to choose. Choices have consequences.

Re:Causes?

[hazah]

Not my point; clearly. Obviously, from the small list I've provided, being a soldier could potential have far more lethal consequences.

Re:Causes?

[Paul Fernhout]

Better nutrition can help improve a lot of mental dysfunction.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

Medically supervised fasting sometimes helps, too (the Russians explored that).

Tasteless joke in 3, 2, 1...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at it from a different angle; maybe it was his own fault. Maybe he forgot to lock the door.

Naturally...

[mino]

"His family asks that you respect their privacy at this difficult time"?

Re:Naturally...

[Arancaytar]

Well, yeah. Championing the cause of privacy protection in social networks earns you that right many times over.

So...

[rapidreload]

Not to be (deliberately) insensitive, but how will this affect the development of Diaspora?

Re:So...

[Shikaku]

Not to be (deliberately) insensitive, but murdered just like reiserfs.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't. Diaspora died long before he did.

Re:So...

[beaverdownunder]

This ^^ deserves the Aspie poor-taste comment of the year award...

Congratulations!

Re:So...

[Riceballsan]

Actually that could lead to the most ironic possible turn of events... Diaspora's failure was not so much the product, as a failure to have a working product for the public at a time when the general media was paying attention... I don't know about anyone else but I actually got my diaspora invite yesterday (that I signed up for a year back). Before I get flamed, no I do not think this was planned for such, but I do think there is a 1/100 chance that his death may draw the media, that may possibly draw the public to check out his work. 10 years from now we may be looking at the digital equivalent of Van Gogh.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

I really doubt it. Really, really doubt it.

Re:So...

[DrXym]

Diaspora has only really just launched and it works reasonably well for it too. It's a little slow but the experience is slick and I would have thought the privacy guarantees would meant at least geeks but possibly a wider audience would find the attraction in using it.

Re:So...

[TheRaven64]

I would have thought the privacy guarantees would meant at least geeks but possibly a wider audience would find the attraction in using it

What privacy guarantees? Who has reviewed the federation protocol? Last time I checked, it was an ad-hoc pile of crap full of serious design flaws and the reference implementation (which was about as close as you got to real documentation for the protocol) was a security disaster. The difference between Diaspora and Facebook is that people actually had to pay for Facebook to harvest all of your 'private' information...

Re:So...

[bhartman34]

I don't know about anyone else but I actually got my diaspora invite yesterday (that I signed up for a year back).

Right there is the problem with Diaspora. Their sign-up process is ridiculous. I'm still waiting for my invite, and probably for just as long. At least Google let people invite their friends, when they were still doing the invite-only thing with Google+.

Re:So...

[DrXym]

What privacy guarantees? Who has reviewed the federation protocol? Last time I checked, it was an ad-hoc pile of crap full of serious design flaws and the reference implementation (which was about as close as you got to real documentation for the protocol) was a security disaster. The difference between Diaspora and Facebook is that people actually had to pay for Facebook to harvest all of your 'private' information...

Well you've just answered it. All the source code is there to run your own pod so if you are paranoid about the official host you can run your own and disclose what you like. See http://podupti.me/ for some pods that already exist. As for reviewing the code, the code is all there too on https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora so review it to your own satisfaction or not. Diaspora makes no bones about being in alpha so I'm quite certain there are bugs to be found. Doesn't mean that the principle is sound and from reviewing some of the federation protocols in the wiki it appears to take reasonable security precautions, and takes advantage of emerging standards for distributed comment / pubsub feedback such as Salmon.

Can you review Facebook's code? Can you see what data they capture on your behaviour and activities and what they do with it? Can you host your own code? The answer is no you can't. Facebook Europe does offer some toos for limited disclosure of data but certainly not enough to satisfy people who are identified major omissions in it.

Re:So...

[Raenex]

An Aspie wouldn't know the comment was insensitive.

Re:So...

[syockit]

Okay I get to host my own pod, great. But is it good on its own? I still need to connect to other users to see their contents, and let them see my content, right? So it's either (A) I get users to sign up on my pod, or (B) I connect to users on other existing pods. The problem is, how do I get people to trust my pod? And if I connect to other pods, can I trust them enough that they won't abuse what I shared to the user on those pods? What if those pods run modified versions of Diaspora?

Re:So...

[luis_a_espinal]

Actually that could lead to the most ironic possible turn of events... Diaspora's failure was not so much the product, as a failure to have a working product for the public at a time when the general media was paying attention... I don't know about anyone else but I actually got my diaspora invite yesterday (that I signed up for a year back). Before I get flamed, no I do not think this was planned for such, but I do think there is a 1/100 chance that his death may draw the media, that may possibly draw the public to check out his work. 10 years from now we may be looking at the digital equivalent of Van Gogh.

Yes, it was. The product is the product (no pun intended) of its concept. And the concept was flawed.

Re:So...

[CastrTroy]

I often wonder if you couldn't just run all this social networking stuff over basic SMTP/POP3/IMAP with some customized client on the front end to interpret the messages. When you want to update your status, you send out an email to each of your 400 friends. They log into their client, and receive that email, and find out about that status update. It would be quite a bit inefficient, but most mail servers are pretty much idle most of the time anyway. Develop a standard for what the messages look like, for posting statuses, pictures, links, blog articles, whatever you want, and provide a nice client for accessing it all. Add in some Key exchange so that only your friends can post you messages, and you're pretty much set. Anybody can host it on whichever email server they like, and nobody holds all the cards.

Re:So...

[DrXym]

They only get to see your content assuming your own server grants them access through its response for them to see your content. So I guess if you were uber worried about what you may or may not expose that you would audit that code extremely closely and deny access to content you didn't wish them to see. Obviously below that point you have to trust the code to behave the way its meant to behave but I don't see that as being any different from other kinds of software. You have the source, you have the control over how it runs & hosting, so yes there may be bugs but ultimately you have total control over what it does or does not disclose.

Re:So...

[syockit]

Does it refuse connections from modified source? Is it impossible for modified source to spoof as original?

Re:So...

[syockit]

Someone has to relay the mails, in the event that the recipient is offline. Or should the client try to resend only when both parties are online?

Okay, maybe you can do it like most P2P networks (e.g. BitTorrent) do: A sends to B & C. If C was offline, only B gets it first. But as soon C gets online, C can get A's news from origin or from B.

Re:So...

[DrXym]

I've only glanced over the code but it does appear to contain measures to detect tampering and to detect message forgery. For example pods talk with one another with the salmon protocol which was specifically designed for news aggregation sites to distribute comments back to the origin site and vice versa (i.e. the comments made on one site swim upstream to appear on another site). The protocol is designed to encrypt and sign comments so that the author of the comments is known and unique and provide all the data the origin needs to block / reject comments by spammers and so on.

Of course it's in alpha so what it might do in theory is not necessarily what it might do in practice.

Re:RIP

[Anonymous Coward]

Your link is very nice for folks interested in etymology, but not informative.

Diaspora is not Diaspora.

Let this be a lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

To all young, horny, self-absorbed, invincible little gods of the internet: you're never too young. The cosmos cares not for you.

Value your health. Value your safety.

Accomplish something while you still can, just as Ilya did.

Re:Let this be a lesson

[inflex]

Very true words... health is one of those things that gets stolen away from you almost literally overnight and from there it's a major struggle to get back to normality. Most of us as kids would screw up our faces when our parents would say "You've got your health" when we moaned about not having anything - sadly, as with so many things, you don't realise how true that is until you're older.

The trouble is, you trip up with something, that later causes something else...and so on... you find yourself snowballing down into the pit of death .

Re:Let this be a lesson

[Kjella]

Most of us as kids would screw up our faces when our parents would say "You've got your health" when we moaned about not having anything - sadly, as with so many things, you don't realise how true that is until you're older.

Mostly because it's being used in the same way as "think of the starving children in Africa". Of course there are people that are much, much worse off than us but if any comparison should always be towards the lowest possible bar then you'll lose every time. Particularly if you throw in history on how growing up today is much better than most children through history, probably including your own parents and grandparents. After all, most people - certainly kids and other young people you identify with - do have their health.

Also it's sometimes used as a poor man's equalizer, it doesn't matter that you're Steve Jobs you can still die a long drawn out death of cancer. In that yes your health is important and your health can't really be bought for money, but just because there's a variable you can't control doesn't mean poor and (good|bad) health beats rich and (good|bad) health. It's a just a way to mentally put a few people in the (rich, bad health) below you (poor, good health) in the feelgood hierarchy.

Re:Let this be a lesson

[gander666]

Yep, as someone who had a heart attack at the ripe old age of 45, living with the aftermath, while not fun, is at least a future.

Re:Let this be a lesson

[Archibald Buttle]

Value your health. Value your safety.

Accomplish something while you still can, just as Ilya did.

Value your mental health.

Working flat-out at all costs to accomplish something can be extremely detrimental to both your physical and mental health. The line between sane and insane is much narrower than many imagine. Whilst you may write some cool code, what use is that if you end up losing your sanity, or worse your life?

Re:Let this be a lesson

[ajs]

Mostly because it's being used in the same way as "think of the starving children in Africa". Of course there are people that are much, much worse off than us but if any comparison should always be towards the lowest possible bar then you'll lose every time. Particularly if you throw in history on how growing up today is much better than most children through history, probably including your own parents and grandparents. After all, most people - certainly kids and other young people you identify with - do have their health.

Also it's sometimes used as a poor man's equalizer, it doesn't matter that you're Steve Jobs you can still die a long drawn out death of cancer. In that yes your health is important and your health can't really be bought for money, but just because there's a variable you can't control doesn't mean poor and (good|bad) health beats rich and (good|bad) health. It's a just a way to mentally put a few people in the (rich, bad health) below you (poor, good health) in the feelgood hierarchy.

If this is intended to make you feel good about making poor choices, then carry on.

However, I'll tell you now that most people under 30 are typically living in a dream world. "Poor health" is a concept to most such "youngsters." When I was that age I'd been ill and I'd been injured, and I thought I understood. But, now, with the mild aches and pains of age creeping up on me slowly, I realize how big that gun is that I'm looking down the barrel of. Poor health isn't about being hit by a taxi-cab at 9 and getting my skull fractured. It's not about getting walking pneumonia at 19 and having to walk a mile to the hospital for treatment. It's about being in pain (or even just discomfort) and knowing that you're going to feel that way for a very, very long time, if not the rest of your life.

Not that I'm that bad off. I have a few minor aches and pains that are the sign that my body has stopped being forgiving about trivial injury. But it does put some things in perspective.

Re:Let this be a lesson

[Nyder]

To all young, horny, self-absorbed, invincible little gods of the internet: you're never too young. The cosmos cares not for you.

Value your health. Value your safety.

Accomplish something while you still can, just as Ilya did.

No, life can be short, have fun while you can, because tomorrow you might be dead, crippled, in jail, or be accused of being a terrorist/hacker/pirate.

My best friend died recently, boom! Was in fine health, didn't have any problems, but found dead at his computer. All it does is reinforce the fact that shit happens, to anyone.

Should I live scared like I am going to die? Fuck no. But i am going to make sure i do all the fun stuff I want to.

Live life, have fun, enjoy it.

Also, life is a scorecard. You don't have to accomplish anything, in the end, it doesn't fucking matter. Our future is death. Every single one of us. If your concerned about death, or being someone, or accomplishing stuff, then you doing it wrong, very wrong.

Enjoy yourself, because in the end, that is all you have.

Re:Let this be a lesson

[Nyder]

Very true words... health is one of those things that gets stolen away from you almost literally overnight and from there it's a major struggle to get back to normality. Most of us as kids would screw up our faces when our parents would say "You've got your health" when we moaned about not having anything - sadly, as with so many things, you don't realise how true that is until you're older.

The trouble is, you trip up with something, that later causes something else...and so on... you find yourself snowballing down into the pit of death .

Yes, that is called life. It happens to all of us.

So enjoy what you have while you have it.

Re:Let this be a lesson

[luis_a_espinal]

To all young, horny, self-absorbed, invincible little gods of the internet: you're never too young. The cosmos cares not for you.

Value your health. Value your safety.

Accomplish something while you still can, just as Ilya did.

What did he accomplished? No disrespect, but what did he accomplished?

Re:Let this be a lesson

[Lost Race]

Health and safety are overrated. Any idiot can be safe and healthy. If you have the power to accomplish something then go for it, even if it kills you.

Re:Let this be a lesson

[Paul Fernhout]

"My best friend died recently, boom! Was in fine health, didn't have any problems, but found dead at his computer."

Maybe vitamin D deficiency and maybe other nutritional deficiencies? See the end of this page: http://www.changemakers.com/node/113512/comments

Humans *need* sunlight, or appropriate supplements. And they need to eat vegetables, lots of them. And they need good fats in their diet. And they need to avoid too many junky additives. And they need exercise, like a treadmill workstation.

Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[DISKOTeCH]

For those wondering. Doing a simple Twitter search of @zhitomirskiyi, brings this recent tweet directly mentioning him: https://twitter.com/#!/micahdaigle/status/135613279618871296 "@zhitomirskiyi, founder of @joindiaspora, has committed suicide. :(" about around 24 hours ago, long before it was announced on Techcrunch. Then someone else mentioned suicide as well, but they delete their tweet, not before it was retweeted however: https://twitter.com/justinherman/status/135619350538358784 "@amoration Found out colleague killed himself. Sending serenity in the passing of @zhitomirskiyi" Sad to hear it. R.I.P. Ilya Zhitomirskiy. Thank you for your work.

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

That's so sad. This really takes me back to one year ago when I was also 22 and my friend of the same age took his own life. Bright guy... valedictorian in high school. Such a shock when it happens and you're sad and angry and just confused and you wonder, "how could they do that? Doesn't he realize that me and his other friends like him and look up to him and what he just wasted?" Awful and upsetting... thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[Anonymus]

Maybe put him in the care of people who aren't suffering from depression?

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[foniksonik]

What? Life didn't even get interesting until I was at least 22. The best years of life are in you 30s when you have money, friends who are more than just coincidental classmates. I pity your children.

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[Fzz]

By the time you're 20 you kinda get the plot, and it usually doesn't get any better after that.

I disagree strongly with that. I'm in my mid-40s, and so far I have to say that life has got better with each passing decade. Not necessily easier, mind you, but certainly better. My job has never been more interesting, and my kids are getting old enough to be not just fun but interesting to have deep discussions with. Perhaps most importantly, I know myself, my strengths and weaknesses better than I ever used to, I've got far more confidence than when I was younger, I'm happy with who I am, and I know how to apply myself and to work with the people around me to get stuff done.

Life is what you make of it. Whatever age you are.

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Concur with the others. Each phase of life so far has its own interesting things about it. The early to mid-20s are undoutedly very cool - it gets easier to meet women, you're getting things moving in some direction (hopefully) in terms of career or graduate education, you can stay out late partying because you have no real obligations in terms of family or kids. A great time, no doubt.

On the other hand, you are often working sick, crazy hours trying to get ahead career-wise. So far my late 20s and early 30s have a lot more in terms of family responsibilities with a wife and now a baby daughter, but also a much better balance between work and life, more interesting trips and leisure time, and a filtering down of my friends and relationships into people my wife and I *want* to spend time with and not just the set of people I thought I was supposed to be friends with.

I am sure the latter part of my 30s and my 40s will have entirely new surprises that I can't imagine yet. There are crappy things and wonderful things at every stage of life, but always new things to learn and new parts of life to experience.

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[dskzero]

You can't be serious. Taking complete control is apparently being a coward and instead of trying to make his life work he simply finished it. A moment of bravery to save yourself a life of sacrifices? No.

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[TheGratefulNet]

after 50, you'll find that things have gotton worse; employers are no longer willing to consider you, your peers (should you HAVE a job, still) consider you an 'old fogey' and the cost of med insurance (even if you are mostly healthy) skyrockets.

lots of 'stuff' ahead of you and most of it is not all good. hate to break it to you (as one who is 50, now).

aging SUCKS and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[poena.dare]

What? Life didn't even get interesting until I was at least 52. The best years of life are in your 50s when you have outlived your overweight enemies and your friends are all people you can give an eyewitness accounts of them burying bodies (and they, you). I pity you, children.

But frankly, life is pretty shitty all over and the only defense:

1) Lie to yourself saying things will get better until you believe it contrary to the evidence. (See first paragraph example.)

2) Be really really freaking thankful Its Not Worse. For example, Thanksgiving is the day I meditate on the amazing powers of my white maleness. (Cue Louis CK clip...)

Those who can't lie to themselves and are too pissed off to be grateful find various ways to induce states of not-thinking-about-it. But even that will fail eventually.

The only reason I'm alive today is, in effect, due to my terrible marksmanship and bad choice of weapons.

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[Toonol]

Strange. Life generally gets better and better as you age. You get smarter, wiser, and more experienced; you stop making the mistakes that cause so much trouble.

It sounds like you're depressed, and that is rubbing off on your child.

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[Onymous Coward]

It's interesting to see the range of reactions people have. This one, anger and condemnation, is pretty common. I always figured it was just a way to distance one's self from the pain rather than it being any kind of logical perspective.

I hadn't heard that there was Science behind it. Any links you have handy?

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

You make your own destiny. Don't let the environment dictate who you are.

Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause

[Nyder]

Maybe put him in the care of people who aren't suffering from depression?

Um, I suffer from depression and I am not suicidal at all. You do understand that while depression and suicide is linked, it's not a "every depressed person is suicidal" thing.

Re:google's hand

[monkyyy]

u mean facebook, they allready trained the stalkers

Well...

[jd]

...the blog sites can't decide if he was 21 or 22. Most copy blindly off each other - and that includes Zdnet who should know better. Given that his work was in social networking and thus communication, I can't help but feel that he has been let down by the poor quality of communication surrounding his death.

Re:Well...

[jd]

His final posting on Diaspora was of a translucent butterfly on the 7th. There was nothing that really stood out to be in his other postings as being suicidal, so I'm not going to go with that theory until there's something a bit more solid than the rumourmill. However, if it does turn out that that was what happened, it would alter how this image should be seen and therefore show that this was no sudden thing.

Re:Well...

[Rie Beam]

When someone commits suicide, it's not always the case that they're going to smother the Internet with cries for help -- introverted especially, especially the geeky kind, tend to bundle up their emotions. Suicides can and do happen out of the blue.

Re:Well...

[fatphil]

Unfortunately, the ones that actually are going to go ahead with it are the ones less likely to send out the cries for help.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

As an educated (BS in SE), 25 year old male who has attempted suicide twice (and failed by chance/luck/bad luck), in general we do send out cries for help. They get dismissed or go unnoticed. They aren't "I'm going to kill myself tonight. Don't try to stop me." but more like "I don't really care" or "I just cause problems" along with a passive shrug cause you don't want to make the other person feel bad too.

Personally if someone had noticed my attempts, I think I would've been better off. The ones that are vocal about it get help, the ones that are discovered before death get help, but the ones that are barely strong enough to keep from going all the way just linger on in quiet misery without being able to get help or end it.

My respect to the guy. Humans die easily, but it takes a lot to kill yourself. He was stronger than me.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

And it may not even have had anything to do with emotions at all. Sometimes people just find themselves in a situation without an acceptable solution.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would tend to say this post is a cry for help.

Re:Well...

[Hatta]

Suicides don't happen out of the blue. It might be a surprise for everyone but the subject, but it's not "out of the blue".

Re:Well...

[dr_dank]

Paradoxically, some depressives seem like they're improving just before they commit suicide. Deciding on and planning out the deed, knowing that the end to their suffering is at hand can make them seem happier. This adds to the "out of the blue" perception.

Re:Well...

[LWATCDR]

You really didn't want to commit suicide or you would have. Truth is that it is easy to commit a successful suicide. That being said I hope you are now getting some help. Depression is a terrible thing and can effect anyone. I am dealing with it now over the death of my mother.

Re:Well...

[tixxit]

Please get help. You cannot count on other people to notice these things, as we often project ourselves onto others. We are also notorious for choosing the easiest path when faced with tough decisions. That means assuming you are content and that your subtle cries for help are just quirky behaviour on your part. Therapy isn't a magic bullet, but I've seen it really help others I care about.

Re:Well...

[T.E.D.]

A lot of time they don't want "help". A great many of them happen when someone is just coming out of the "too depressed to get out of bed" phase of cyclical depression, and they just don't ever want to go through that again.

Re:Well...

[Steffan]

Hey, AC, even if your're not ready to go the full 'counseling' step, consider calling one of the hotlines for 'just a chat'. A five minute committment is worthwhile to just be able to talk to someone who doesn't know you and won't judge you.

Re:Well...

[hierophanta]

thats a terrible pun

Re:Well...

[LWATCDR]

This was only in reference to attempts not to feeling like you want to. There are just to many ways that one can kill themselves that any failed attempt says more to a desire to not die than luck. I meant it really as a complement to a part of yourself that has the strength to no give up. I am not a skilled writer so forgive my inability to communicate exactly what I meant in the way I meant it. What I was saying is that part of you really wants to live otherwise you would have pulled it off.
So far I have not had a desire to kill myself but I have also been letting my own health go. As I said I hope you are getting the help you need right now. My depression is just situational depression according to my doctor.

Re:Well...

[wjcofkc]

Your post has brought me to tears as I have so unfortunately been there myself and I understand. I am very concerned by the words you chose in this post - if those were my words it would most certainly be a thinly veiled cry for help. Here is the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 Please call or call a friend. And please remember that in those times that you are not considering taking your life, even if they are fleeting, it's not worth it. I understand how hard it is. You are not alone.

Re:Well...

[Nyder]

As an educated (BS in SE), 25 year old male who has attempted suicide twice (and failed by chance/luck/bad luck), in general we do send out cries for help. They get dismissed or go unnoticed. They aren't "I'm going to kill myself tonight. Don't try to stop me." but more like "I don't really care" or "I just cause problems" along with a passive shrug cause you don't want to make the other person feel bad too.

Personally if someone had noticed my attempts, I think I would've been better off. The ones that are vocal about it get help, the ones that are discovered before death get help, but the ones that are barely strong enough to keep from going all the way just linger on in quiet misery without being able to get help or end it.

My respect to the guy. Humans die easily, but it takes a lot to kill yourself. He was stronger than me.

Humans do die easy, and life is dirt cheap on this planet.

but killing yourself because life gets rough? Seriously?

I take depression meds, but I am not suicidal. Because I understand shit happens. most the time it's other people it happens to, on occasion, it's me who gets shit on. And it's how i react to that shit that makes me a person. I don't take the "easy way out", I deal with it.

You think it wouldn't be easier to just give up, and die? Ya, it would. But fuck that, i'm not some wimp. I am not afraid of death, in fact, i'm looking forward to death and seeing what happens, but it will happen in time, no use rushing it.

What i've found, for every shitty situation that life has for me, that once you get thru it, you've grown. I've been a herion addict. I've spent countless times getting "clean" in jail, i've spent too many times being homeless. And if i had given up, I wouldn't today have a nice apartment with a view, for really cheap (low income housing), I wouldn't have internet, or my EQ2 game to play. I wouldn't of beat my addiction, and i sure as hell would of never gotten to finish the Wheel of Time series. And i sure as hell would of never met the sister I have (half sister, from mom, put up for adoption before i was born).

So, sorry. If I can stay alive for the crappy parts, everyone one can also.

Sad

[tekgoblin]

This is sad, he had a bright future. I wonder what was bothering him enough to commit suicide assuming thats what actually happened.

Re:Sad

[Riceballsan]

I cannot believe I had to scroll down this far to find the first post that wasn't a brazen insensitive mockery or a joking jab at an assassination. Not that they normally bother me, but really even the announcement of Steve Jobs' death was at least 50/50. Maybe the project that he had didn't take off, but his ideals and his heart were in the right place, and if he did indeed take his own life, that makes it even more tragic.

Re:Sad

[Lisias]

Someone knows how he was dealing with the heavy criticizing of the Diaspora's code?

Re:Sad

[beaverdownunder]

Just demonstrates the cynical, borderline sociopathic nature of most /.ters =/

Re:Sad

[tehcyder]

Just demonstrates the cynical, borderline sociopathic nature of most /.ters =/

I have all the characteristics of a human being: flesh, blood, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.

Welcome to slashdot, you'll find plenty of like-minded folk here.

Re:Sad

[eulernet]

It may be related to this message: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/721055
where he announces that he just started an intimate relation, less than 2 weeks ago.

The relation has probably been broken, as his heart :-(

Re:Sad

[Raenex]

If you're serious, see a doctor. You might have a brain tumor or something.

Re:Sad

[Raenex]

Good to know. Cultural references are always dicey.

What is Diaspora?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, guys, I know only a moron like myself doesn't know what this Diaspora project is, but couldn't you put a link or a two-word explanation? Yes, I know Google is my friend. Feel free to mod me down now.

Re:What is Diaspora?

[Shikaku]

Open Source Facebook Clone

Re:What is Diaspora?

[epine]

Google is my friend, too, yet I would have been ever so grateful for the tiniest social grace of sparing me yet another Google result set.

I'm pretty sure Lewis Thomas in Lives of a Cell (or possibly Et Cetera, Et Cetera: Notes of a Word-Watcher) comments about the sad decline of the elder statesmen: he hasn't forgotten anything so much as piled it so deep in the attic he can't find it without a substantial jog.

For about five minutes a year ago I knew what Diaspora was. Then it went directly to the Lewis Thomas attic of things I can only possibly remember once reminded.

Hard to understand, I guess, when you're twenty two.

Re:What is Diaspora?

[jones_supa]

It is a Facebook-type social network, whose key feature is its distributed design and that you retain control and ownership for everything you post.

Re:What is Diaspora?

[DrXym]

Diaspora is like Facebook mashed up with Twitter. You have a stream to write musings and to listen to other people's. You subscribe to topics using hash tags and you have "aspects" (akin to groups / circles) to put associates / friends / family / followers into. Where it might appeal to geeks or just people interested in their privacy is that privacy is concretely defined and the project itself is open source so there are likely to be many hosts cropping up over time. Once hosts pop up you should be able to export your data as xml and import it into the new one. It would be nice if hosts joined together with some Jabber like IPC so it didn't strictly matter where you or your friends resided as long as they were reachable between nodes.

One area of particular appeal I see for the project is in serving enterprises. I can see Diaspora being pretty useful for places that want a facebook like application to serve an internal audience. e.g. you have 20,000 people in the company you might use aspects and the wall for general team and company level chitchat. Perhaps that's how the project ultimately intends to make money, selling support to these places.

Anyway I think it's early days for the project. It got a lot of bad press about 12 months back but its really rolling out in alpha form. It's still slow (and currently suffering from a bit of a Slashdotting), but it shows a lot of promise.

Re:What is Diaspora?

[mistigri]

More info here :

http://www.diasporafoundation.org/

Re:What is Diaspora?

[HeckRuler]

It's not just an open source facebook clone. that would be simple as setting up a website with users, and user content, and the ability to link other's content. Bam, Facebook clone.

No, Diaspora was to be distributed. There's no central authority to decide who gets banned, blocked, censored, spied upon, and sold to marketers. It would be YOU in control of your social network. It was a noble goal. But it didn't seem to go anywhere.

I don't know anything about the guy, but suicide is always a damn shame. And just from the sheer amount of money being thrown around, the possibility of being suicided shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

Re:What is Diaspora?

[UpnAtom]

Diaspora is what we hope will rescue us from Facebook.

It's a distributed, open source network where you are in charge of your data. Even Michael Chisari, creator of competitor Appleseed, wants Diaspora to succeed.

Re:Fact

[Psychotria]

Well, it's a bit late now, isn't it AC! Sheesh. Geez... I'm not even going to respond to you any further.

To Ilya: R.I.P
To Ilya's family, friends, colleagues and associates: I offer my condolences and wish you peace also and wish you the strength to get through this.

Regards
Craig

 

Re:Fact

[Psychotria]

Sorry for replying again. But if you are sincerely sorry and regret your troll, man up and put your name to the apology. I accept that you may be sorry, but hiding behind the cloak of anonymity means your words and your somewhat cowardice[1] "apology" bear little weight IMO.
Cheers, Craig
[1] Cowardice because you can't even put your first name in the response as the most minimal gesture.

Or even

[Chrisq]

Diaspora is probably the most relevant

Re:Or even

[__aardcx5948]

Wow it looks almost exactly like Google Plus

Re:Or even

[Chrisq]

Yes this has been noted by others

Re:Or even

[arth1]

Well, it certainly couldn't have been the Jewish Diaspora considering he was 22...

When a name is used by at least three different software-related concepts, would it be too much to ask the submitters to be a little more explicit?
This is like saying "Apple founder dies", leaving you wonder whether they mean Macca or Woz.

Anyhow, I hope the failure of the socnet software wasn't why he became an hero. Cause no software is that important.

Re:Or even

[Risen888]

Yes, Google obviously appropriated a lot of Diaspora's concepts. Diaspora launched far in advance of G+.

I'm really sorry to hear this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Condolences to his family and friends.

Re:I'm really sorry to hear this.

[Psychotria]

This got modded funny? What is wrong with the people on this website?

It's full of immature ACs who are too afraid to stand behind what they say, I suspect. *shrug*

Re:I'm really sorry to hear this.

[Psychotria]

This got modded funny? What is wrong with the people on this website?

It's full of immature ACs who are too afraid to stand behind what they say, I suspect. *shrug*

I'm going to (again!) respond to my own post.

If you're one of those Anonymous Cowards who can't put a name behind your beliefs, then your belief or opinion is worth nothing. Sometimes anonymity is necessary for one reason or another. However I do believe that the majority of AC posts here (/.) are posted anonymously because the poster is either a troll or has so little self confidence that they're not sure if their belief will be "accepted" or not, and don't want to face criticism. *If* you fucking believe something, *If* you are passionate about something, then fucking post it without hiding. If you can't post it without hiding behind the AC (and this obviously excludes people who post AC for legitimate reasons) then you doubt your own "belief" or "opinion" and why should anyone take you seriously.

I'm not posting this anonymously because I stand by my beliefs, opinions, assertions, whatever. People might mod me down. Who cares?! I certainly don't because conveying my message is more important to me than some crazy moderation system. I have no idea what is wrong with people these days. If you have something to say (and it doesn't jeopardise your position, or whatever), then just fucking say it and stop hiding. If there is no valid reason to hide and you choose to hide anyway, then your belief and values can't be that strong. Can they?

Cheers

Re:I'm really sorry to hear this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, yeah, whatever. Maybe we realize that registration is pointless. You're not "anonymous"? You "put a name behind your beliefs"?

Really?

I'm guessing your birth certificate doesn't say "Psychotria". If you worked in the cubicle next to mine, I wouldn't even know that this was you. How are you any less anonymous than me? What, because I can see which of the comments on this specific website came from you, whereas you can't know for certain which AC comments came from the same person? BFD.

Re:I'm really sorry to hear this.

[Macthorpe]

If you're one of those Anonymous Cowards who can't put a name behind your beliefs, then your belief or opinion is worth nothing.

That opinion is worth nothing, because you're posting it behind a pseudonym. Where's the line between a worthwhile opinion and a worthless one on a website where barely anybody uses their real name?

Re:I'm really sorry to hear this.

[Culture20]

*If* you fucking believe something, *If* you are passionate about something, then fucking post it without hiding. If you can't post it without hiding behind the AC (and this obviously excludes people who post AC for legitimate reasons) then you doubt your own "belief" or "opinion" and why should anyone take you seriously.

Prudence Goodwife disagrees.

Re:I'm really sorry to hear this.

[Culture20]

Oops, I meant Silence Dogood.

Re:I'm really sorry to hear this.

[Tim C]

It seems to me that even using your real name counts for nothing. For what it's worth, this is my real name (the C is short for Campbell).

But so what? I'm not the only one in the world, so what does it really tell you?

Re:I'm really sorry to hear this.

[bonch]

Most sane readers left for Reddit and Hacker News long ago, leaving behind the crazies.

Re:I'm really sorry to hear this.

[bonch]

What, because I can see which of the comments on this specific website came from you, whereas you can't know for certain which AC comments came from the same person?

Yes. AC abuse has skyrocketed, a bunch of posts spammed by a few people with an agenda (look at any Apple article). It makes the comments section even more worthless, which is the last thing Slashdot has going for it since it's so shockingly behind in posting news.

Re:I'm really sorry to hear this.

[turkeyfish]

"Yes. AC abuse has skyrocketed,"

This is merely a reflection of the fact that many are fearful that their own abilities don't match their rhetoric or their self-conceived view of themselves. Posting anonymously only slightly retards the speed at which the reckoning comes. In reality little of even the greatest minds amounts to little that matters in time. Humans are rather limited in their intellectual capabilities, which are all relative to circumstance. It is difficult to confront the reality that one's life really doesn't mean all that much regardless of the intensity of the self-adoration and self-righteousness.

Nonetheless, given all of humanities problems we must hope that everyone might have a few shining moments just to keep the potential of civilization alive and stave off the near certainty of human extinction, which will probably come far sooner than most realize.

Re:I'm really sorry to hear this.

[Ginger Unicorn]

you must be a riot at parties ;)

Re:RIP

[freedumb2000]

Nice troll, but it only worked because the summary was badly written (once again).

Re:Fact

[cheekyjohnson]

How offensive! My entire life is just... ruined.

Re:Sinister deeds!

[hairyfeet]

Oh please! if it was MSFT the hitmen would have spammed the place with bullets but not hit a damned thing. You think they can train their hitmen any better than they plan their product roadmap?

Now if it were Apple it would have been incredibly expensive, but with style and flair, such as taking him up in a Lear Jet and dressing him in a really nice suit and then dropping him onto the point at the top of the Empire State building, while having a note in his pocket written by an academy award winning screenwriter.

And if it were Linux they would have received plans for an elaborate machine gun (released under GPL V2 of course!) and a pile of pig iron and told to "Make it yourself, RTFM noob, its easy!".

Re:Did some bank investing in FB kill him?

[MichaelSmith]

No because Diaspora was going nowhere.

Re:Fact

[Chrisq]

How offensive! My entire life is just... ruined.

Yup. The "Anonymous Coward" lives up to his name.

Antitrust

[Noughmad]

May not have been much of a movie, but it seems it got many predictions right.

Re:Sinister deeds!

[glwtta]

And if it were Linux they would have received plans for an elaborate machine gun (released under GPL V2 of course!) and a pile of pig iron and told to "Make it yourself, RTFM noob, its easy!".

What's really sad is that that lame joke is probably older than this guy was.

Re:With apologies to everyone who knew and loved I

[Culture20]

Unless you found a stylized Z carved in the wall...

Re:RIP

[Rob the Bold]

Nice troll, but it only worked because the summary was badly written (once again).

But this is Slashdot. I was told here just last week that we really don't need good summaries, since anyone who needs a summary obviously isn't interested in the topic anyway.

Re:RIP

[TheCRAIGGERS]

Oh, you mean sarcasm? That is also a long-standing Slashdot habit.

Re:With apologies to everyone who knew and loved I

[TheCRAIGGERS]

When you make a web page that conforms to standards, it is the browser's fault if it cannot render it correctly. Targeting specific browsers is: hard, ugly, mind blowing, and a wasted effort in the long run.

That's fine for your own personal blog. But when you're a company that lives and dies by getting as many users as possible to flock to your banner, you want your site to work in as many browsers as possible.

Re:Help

[Tim C]

No, that's part of the problem with depression; the truly depressed don't believe that anything or anyone can help them.

I'm not really anyone to you

[circletimessquare]

And I make no pretense to know what it is like to want to commit suicide.

But I've always wanted to say to someone who was considering taking their life: why not just take your "life" instead?

And what I mean by that is, your situation in life. It obviously is not working, so abandon it. Take a plane to a far flung location on the globe, without any money or means of support, change your name, dissolve all ties to your previous existence, preemptively sabotage any way anyone could trace you, and live off trash or stolen mangoes from a tree, until something better comes along.

And become another person. Someone who might be happy someday.

Effectively "kill" yourself: all the identities you have with your current existence, the sum of all your relationships that aren't working, the job that fills you with nothing but misery, all of the reality around you that cages you about how you think about yourself. "Kill" all of the signifiers about who you currently are and how you think about your place in life.

And maybe the challenge and novelty of that will put you in a new frame of mind. And then you can be happy someday.

Of course, I know, the fear is you carry the seed of your depression around inside you, and even in a new life, the despondency will return. But I think, for many people, it is a combination of nature and nurture, and you, who you are, had your life gone another path, you might not be so depressed. We all are depressed at times, we all carry the seed of depression, and major depression too, were the situations in our life and how we come to think about ourselves had evolved a different way. So write a new story. Yes, you carry a seed of it inside you. We all do, and we aren't committing suicide because our seed never grew. So cut down the tree your seed has grown into, and move to new soil where the seed can't grow.

So restart the story. A lot of people talk about reinventing themselves, in ways they consider major, but are really minor. Consider the most radical reinvention possible, instead of suicide.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[LordLimecat]

A few thoughts.

If someone is convinced that everything in life is meaningless, they are unlikely to have the perspective you present. It seems a little like telling someone who is depressed from a week of no sleep that they just need to "buck up"-- their mental state at that point will make your suggestion an impossibility. Depression can be like that-- you may understand objectively your depression, but that does not make it easy to simply say "Im going to stop being depressed now".

Also, a lot of people may not have the luxury of being able to afford what you suggest, and that may be part of the depression; or perhaps they are not able to leave their country (not everywhere lets you just "leave" like so many western countries do).

I dont want to justify suicide as a defensible or honorable or "right" option; but I think you trivialize what people can go through when you posit that they just need to do X to fix their problem. Theres a reason people are encouraged to seek others when they are depressed or suicidal-- sometimes people mentally trap themselves in a way that makes it nearly impossible to get out of alone. And theres a reason that people in that situation reach out only hesitantly-- its because that very state of mind makes people not want to try, or to burden others.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[InfiniteZero]

Interesting thought experiment.

I think one of the biggest problems of people in depression is the inability to snap out of the moment and see the bright side. Whatever happening (or not happening, for that matter) in their current life is precisely what's dragging them down. If they could manage to cut all cords and start a new life, they would've already gone through a major "paradigm shift" in their mind and snapped out of it, and ironically no longer needed to start anew.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[UpnAtom]

Isn't it just easier to get help?

CBT is pretty successful with depressive issues, most of wich would stick around no matter where you go.
There's also hypnotherapy, NLP, EMDR, EFT...

As a psychotherapist with a success rate exceeding 80%, I'd have to say your advice isn't great.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[circletimessquare]

I'm not saying it's professional advice. I do think it is honest sincere friendly advice.

At the very least, it's an interesting thought experiment, something that might give someone pause, to see the possibility of themselves outside of the situation in life that is depressing them.

Bernie Madoff's son committed suicide. That's situational: if his father had been an honest man, or his lie had not unwound the way it did and when it did, Bernie Madoff's son would still be alive, certainly. So there is certainly many situational suicides, it's not all chemistry.

A lot of people posting here seem to be starting with the chemical view of depression, and stop there, as if that is the only valid way to look at depression and suicide. That even my thought experiment won't help, so despondent and helpless the suicidal person is. But, as a psychotherapist, I am certain you can at least appreciate the situational depressive who wants to commit suicide, as opposed to the chemical depressive. Of course, the situation and the chemistry overlap and reinforce each other. Which is cause? Which is effect? Does the depressive even know, after time?

Is it nature or nurture? Of course, it's both. And so my thought experiment I will defend as having real value. At least to get a suicidal person a new frame of reference, whether they actually carry out the great escape: new life, or not.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[UpnAtom]

I did appreciate your attempt to virtually relocate the parent and thus am happy for your comment to stand. I just thought it shouldn't stand alone. ;)

Something else your post might have helped with. People rarely prioritise long-term happiness. They'll put work, family, pseudo-rationality etc first and then wonder why they're not happy.

As far as I can tell, the biochemical contribution to depression is minimal to non-existent. Many studies have shown the failure of SSRIs to outperform placebo. Indeed SNRIs (which do the opposite) are also prescribed for depression.

That CBT works at all shows that depression in most cases is a largely down to habitually depressing thought patterns. There are other cases where this is not true at all.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[circletimessquare]

That's interesting! You're saying the chemistry is complete BS.

Someone: mod parent up: A lot of people posting here seem to believe depression is all chemical and hopeless (a nice fatalistic, self-reinforcing helplessness belief). The above info needs to get out there.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[UpnAtom]

If someone was hypothetically truly beyond help and determined to commit suicide, I'd strongly suggest something like circletimessquare said. Actually I'd suggest they spend all their money on a holiday doing whatever they want to do before they die.

Now as a psychotherapist, I know that everyone is helpable and in hours rather than years. Heck, depression is pretty much the only thing that CBT works for.

You might also want to look at the thread I following my response where I point out some of the smart things circletimessquare did.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[UpnAtom]

It might work for a few. The two intermediate causes of depression are:
1. Feeling bad.
2. Believing it's never going to get better.

Now you can't stop people feeling bad ever (and this is the intent of suicide). The second part is where it's easier to help people. But first you have to find out what will convince them.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[UpnAtom]

The problem is the research is all methodically skewed to show the drugs work.

A common and accepted trick was to use a sugar pill as a placebo. I can tell the difference between a sugar pill and prozac and I'm not attuned to SSRIs.
A ubiquitous and accepted trick is to never test the blind. In these multi-million dollar studies, nobody spends a few thousand asking the patients what they think they took. Why? Because the patients can nearly always guess [my own site] (Fisher and Greenberg 1993). One presumes the doctors know what they're prescribing.
Another common trick is to bury studies that don't show what the drug companies want them to do.
Yet another common trick is the placebo washout. The researchers run a placebo only stage - anyone who improves is removed. Needless to say, this exaggerates any difference between the drug and the placebo.
The last trick which springs to mind is ghostwriting - the drug companies write the paper and then look for anyone to put their name on it.

Ben Goldacre is writing a book about all this.

Lastly, SSRIs encourage suicidality in some young patients, hence the much publicised FDA warning.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[LordLimecat]

Now as a psychotherapist, I know that everyone is helpable and in hours rather than years.

Forgive me if I am skeptical, but it seems to be rather at odds with reality where people can struggle with depression for years-- either all other psychotherapists are inept at their job, or you are grossly underestimating what it can be like.

I dont mean to doubt that people can be talked and coached through it, it just really sounds like an exaggeration to say that you can help everyone "in hours" unless you mean simply starting the process.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[UpnAtom]

You're right in the first option. Most other psychotherapists are grossly inept at their job.

It's a surreal experience that I and many like me have lived with for over a decade now.

There's very little incentive to be a decent alternative therapist. Those good at marketing get more clients.

You almost never get referrals because none of your recovered clients want to talk about their old weird problems. The ones I do get are with stuff like cocaine addiction where I get the entire coke circle referred. ;)
GPs don't take it seriously because there's no accepted studies showing efficacy of what I do (not sure what its like in the US).

Consequently, there's also a complete disconnect between psychiatry and what works. I think with methods like EMDR and EFT, psychiatry will eventually open up to new approaches..
The normal scientific model doesn't work well for psychotherapy. It's not a standardised treatment that you apply to a bunch of different patients. You have to test multiple therapists against each other and against a control. I would happily be a part of such a trial but who's going to fund it and which journal will publish it?

Times are changing though. When CBT came along (something that can be taught in a morning) tens of thousands of Freudians were made irrelevant. EMDR and acupuncture are gradually gaining acceptance. EFT inevitably will and thus the paradigm is changing.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[cthulhu11]

Take a plane to a far flung location on the globe, without any money or means of support, change your name, dissolve all ties to your previous existence, preemptively sabotage any way anyone could trace you, and live off trash or stolen mangoes from a tree, until something better comes along.

Riiiight, because it's so easy to fly to another country for $0 airfare, without ID or a VISA, and make any sort of living without knowing the local language.

And maybe the challenge and novelty of that will put you in a new frame of mind. And then you can be happy someday

Spoken like a clueless tall guy.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[LordLimecat]

This was a lot more reasonable than your first post, where you explicitly asserted that everyone was treatable in "hours, not years". The blog you linked contradicts that explicitly, btw.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[vaporland]

CBT? computer based training?
EFT? electronic funds transfer?

if you're going to use non-tech acronyms on a tech-based website, at least provide some links...

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[UpnAtom]

Doug says 30mins to 3 sessions. The latter might mean 3 hours or he might mean 6.

I've taken as long as 12 hours with very complex cases.

Re:I'm not really anyone to you

[UpnAtom]

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Emotional Freedom Technique.

You could easily have Googled them alongside the word "therapy".

And is /. ever going to make it possible to insert links without typing that a href gobbledegook?

Re:With apologies to everyone who knew and loved I

[phantomfive]

I don't see Diaspora as anything close to a competitor of Facebook.

Re:This Age

[aesiamun]

What?

Amen

[UBfusion]

Amen. It's the 2nd /. post in two weeks where people forget that the first post regarding a death should always be sending condolences. Is netiquette immune to death?

In that other post somebody said that his father just died and asked for best practices on how to securely disclose passwords for posterity. IIRC there were about 150 technical threads and I felt the urge in that 151st post to offer him my condolences.

I don't know whether I'm too old school or just too sensitive, but to me the primary definition of being human still remains to have empathy and be compassionate (especially in matters of life and death).

Therefore, RIP Ilya. Somehow I have the feeling that you never managed to convince your parents that computers were a good thing for you.

Re:We agree with Ilya

[luis_a_espinal]

We find that customers who can't understand the need for a standards-compliant browser are typically difficult to work with and have a high rate of returned merch, so we just throw them at a page that explains why and how they can get a real browser. The ones that we can have a profitable relationship with, follow the instructions. The rest, we believe we are better off without. Fools cut into profits and pandering to fools is bad for employee morale.

If your product or service is not well known or not particularly desirable (or if you actually depend on swindling fools) I can see where you might want to cater to non-compliant browsers. But if what you're selling is something intelligent people already want to buy, you don't need the fools and tools. And if you're building a community, I can understand wanting to have a little "test" up front for the same reasons.

Ok, a little bit of attention to the stuff in bold above:

1. How did that apply to Diaspora? Self-fulfilling prophesy/wishful thinking? I mean, seriously, as far as quality went, the software sucked. Intelligent people saw the silliness of it a mile a way, and more intelligent people went "ewww" when they finally had a grasp on the software. Furthermore, the security holes in it are the types that are already document, examples of what-not-to-do. Where was the intelligence in it? Where was the intelligence of actually thinking you (by you I mean anyone who bought the Diasporan tripe) could actually take on FB with a half-cooked software that required a user to install a RoR base (operational requirements anyone)?I don't mean this as a disrespect to the deceased, but a question to the statement quoted above in bold.

2. How many successful business plans or projects, even those on the bleeding edge of innovation, have actually lived by that premise (the one quoted in bold)? That's not just wishful thinking, but wishful thinking manufactured to make an argument me thinks.

Re:With apologies to everyone who knew and loved I

[luis_a_espinal]

I don't see Diaspora as anything close to a competitor of Facebook.

Indeed. Diaspora is not a competitor of anything at all. It's just a make-believe solution looking for a poorly understood problem statement that rings the bell for a very small subset of those into online communities. The saddest part, and the greatest indictment, of movements such as this, is the amount of security holes present in a software that was supposed to provide a better, safer alternative to FB. And that went beyond misunderstanding the problem, but not even knowing how to code secure web software (despite the enormous literature and industrial common knowledge on the subject.) It's like, c'mon, this isn't 1998.

Advice for younger /.ers: Do not kill yourself.

[Qbertino]

Don't kill yourself. Just don't.

Throw away all your stuff, shave your head, leave your home and your hometown, and start walking, heading in one direction. Drop your job. Stand and pee on the desk of your Boss. Run away from school. Do whatever you must, but do *not* kill yourself. It's about the stupidest thing you can do.

My Grandpa who dug the whole Nazi-Wehrmacht thing back then and went on to invade and fight on the eastern front in WW2 as a Waffen-SS Officer (Kompanieführer) gave me this advice he took home after the war: If everything you believed in is gone, the 3rd Reich, the Wehrmacht, your hometown and half of your homeland burned and lost to the russians of which a few million are now rightfull super-pissed and heading straight your way, raping and killing their way through whatever is left of the eastern german population, if your entire Kompanie is dead (two assistants aside, which got captured a few days ago) if the beloved Führer is dead (*his* beloved Füher - not mine (emphasis mine!)), Berlin is falling and you're hearing the gunfire, the Stalinorgel and their bombshells crashing in near Zossen just a few Kilometers away, your injured and they are coming to get you and they will tear you to tiny bits and pieces, and the maggots are eating away at the festering wound in your leg, your career and your life and everything you've ever believed in is basically over and out with no stone on another in bombed out Berlin for Kilometers in each direction ... if all that has and just is happening before your very eyes right here and now ... you might aswell just crawl on a few more meters and see if something interesting happens instead of putting a gun to your head.

He crawled on, found a deserted Wehrmacht horse, crawled on to its back sideways. The horse eventually rode to a gathering-camp. The nurses picked him up and the russians didn't deport him because his injuries were to severe - the lucky bastard.

Long story short, he lives to this very day (age 97) to tell us this advice. Old Type-A nazi or not, that actually *is* a very valuable advice. If *he* in that situation decided *not* to kill himself, so can you.

Bottom line:
Don't kill yourself. It's that simple.

My 2 cents.

Re:Advice for younger /.ers: Do not kill yourself.

[randyleepublic]

Your English is just fine, and your storytelling is the best. Thanks!

Re:Advice for younger /.ers: Do not kill yourself.

[Chuffpole]

You have obviously never been depressed - really horribly deeply depressed. It's nowhere near as simple as you think.

When you really can't see the point of anything, and hate being alive, you're simply not going to see the point of carrying on. Changing everything for a different experience of life? It just doesn't seem worth it.

I haven't been right down to the very bottom myself, or I wouldn't still be here. It's like a black hole, you can get to within a certain distance of it and still pull back. That's the stage where your advice holds water. But past the 'event horizon' there's no coming back, and no amount of advice will counter that slippery slope to oblivion.

That's the tragedy of suicide. If only we could stop people from getting so very very low that there's no way back, we could achieve something. But in a society where personal freedom is valued as much as we do, people are free to be left alone in their misery without any helpful intervention until it's too late. Too many of us just don't have enough positive social contact to keep a healthy mind.

you reap what you sow

[luis_a_espinal]

after 50, you'll find that things have gotton worse; employers are no longer willing to consider you, your peers (should you HAVE a job, still) consider you an 'old fogey' and the cost of med insurance (even if you are mostly healthy) skyrockets.

lots of 'stuff' ahead of you and most of it is not all good.

And therein lies the problem. You should have seen that when you were in your late 20s, early 30s. By the 50's you shouldn't be relying on someone giving you employment, but on selling yourself and having sufficient connections and specific skills in a well-thought, well-carved niche. I know and work with people in their 50's and even 60's who would disagree with you (and have the jobs, careers and lives to prove it.)

hate to break it to you (as one who is 50, now).

aging SUCKS and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Welcome to life dude (as someone in his 40s, with parents in their late 60's/early 70s, with parents-in-law in their 80s and with co-workers and friends in their 50's and 60's, all of which will disagree with you). Life sucks at any age, but for an adult, suckage is a function of the effort we put in life and career planning. Unless you are hit with a terrible eventuality, act of God, war, sickness or some other type of life changing catastrophe, you reap what you sow (and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.)

PLEASE MOD PARENT UP

[circletimessquare]

Suicide is not chemical. Believing it is, is of course, a self-reinforcing fatalistic sense of helplessness and lack of control. The belief fits perfectly with the psychological condition.

Possibly Confirmation of Suicide

[DISKOTeCH]

CNN Money, basically confirms suicide from Police:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/14/technology/diaspora_cofounder_died/

"In this case it appears to be a suicide," Esparza added. "However, the medical examiner's office will make the final decision" after conducting testing."

Suicide Note

[DISKOTeCH]

And someone is claiming a suicide note was left, supposedly: http://oobly.com/2011/11/14/source-diaspora-co-founder-ilya-zhitomirskiy-left-a-detailed-suicide-note_530/

Re:Uh, no.

[brantondaveperson]

What, that they're mostly in their thirties?

It's not the external world that is the problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

Suicide isn't about what's happening to you, it's about what's happening inside you.

Changing everything won't stop suicidal people from killing themselves, just like non-suicidal people like you Grandfather won't kill themselves even when everything has changed for the worst.

Re:With apologies to everyone who knew and loved I

[drinkypoo]

That was the idea, but it never turned out, for whatever reason. And further, the idea was that you could run your own server and that you would get your network through federation, keeping control of your own data like friends lists. Never panned out though. I still think it could be done pretty well with Drupal, with relatively little code.

Re:We agree with Ilya

[euroq]

LOL! This is a bunch of bullshit from someone who doesn't live and die off of getting as many users as possible.

But if what you're selling is something intelligent people already want to buy,

Yeah, exactly. You (if you really are someone who sells stuff, which I highly highly highly doubt) are not trying to get as many consumers as possible, you're apparently only after "intelligent people" or maybe better put "technologically savvy people", or in any case, a minority of people.

Re:With apologies to everyone who knew and loved I

[phantomfive]

It's a great idea, if only those people had been decent at writing halfway secure code.

Re:With apologies to everyone who knew and loved I

[phantomfive]

Well he was just a kid, after all.

Let the cooil.org network commence ....

[thirdwikidotorg]

I understand that this guy has gone to commemorative dot com but I'm sure the networks will continue. Plug-ins are mindful, 'tors' are merely weblinks and the twil network will be a good party for the lot of them. If an RSS feed : http://feeds.wired.com/howtowiki can be used then all the better for manuals.im to be created aswell. As my friend Aaron Robinson in California says: " It's alright, people die and companies rarely do. The real test will be to see how the company weathers the coming years. It'll be interesting to see of they can avoid the pitfalls of the past when ya man wasn't at the helm. " END

Re:Uh, no.

[Lost Race]

That's always good advice.

Hamlet dies.

[AP31R0N]

Real people just die (once, and not habitually). /descriptivist idiocy in 3... 2... 1....

Vitamin D deficiency?

[Paul Fernhout]

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-to-get-your-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-supplementation/

Presumably it is very common among hard working programmers, and it can lead to immune dysfunctions, depression, and other difficulties.

Other health advice here:
http://www.changemakers.com/node/113512/comments

My heart goes out to his family and friends for his loss.

Some health advice (including on vitamin D)

[Paul Fernhout]

http://www.changemakers.com/node/113512/comments

See also: http://psychcentral.com/lib/2010/bipolar-disorder-and-nutrition/

Good luck with it. Everyone has something...

Still, as I say here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html
"In the end, what I have learned about suicide is that it is ironically a hopeful act and a sign of great faith. It is hope things could get better, and faith that one's actions can make one's world a better place. Anyone even thinking of it has the seeds within themselves for something much more life-affirming. "

Some health advice towards the end of this page:

[Paul Fernhout]

http://www.changemakers.com/node/113512/comments

I'll copy it here:

By the way, here are some key useful health related links, and these are some of the issues I'd like to use such a system to discuss, refine, rebut, or promote.

On healthy diet:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/Food-Revolution-Your-Diet-World/dp/1573244872
http://www.amazon.com/Diet-New-America-John-Robbins/dp/0915811812

Knife and blender skills for eating better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RhfAE6McrM
http://greensmoothierevolution.com/

On medically supervised fasting (both water and juice) and health:
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/healthy-food-dr-fuhrman-on-fasting....
http://www.healthpromoting.com/why-water-fasting
http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

And on getting enough vitamin D (in decreasing levels of recommended supplements):
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-to-get-your-vitamin-d...
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/recommendation
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vitamin_D_recommendations.aspx

On vitamin D and pregnancy:
http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20100504/high-doses-of-vitamin-d-may-cut-...
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions...

On autism and health care in general:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_...

Understanding about good and bad fats:
http://peakperformance.runnersworld.com/2011/05/may-9-the-great-fat-deba...
http://nutsci.org/2011/05/04/the-great-fat-debate/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21515108

Mental health:
http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C
http://books.google.com/books?id=RKZreNYKNHQC
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/06/what-makes-us-happy/...
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/dobbs-orchid-gene

Treadmill workstations for computer users (but be sure to get vitamin D being indoors so much):
http://www.engadget.com/2005/06/08/the-treadmill-workstation/
http://www.squidoo.com/wal

Re:Help

[Paul Fernhout]

"the truly depressed don't believe that anything or anyone can help them."

Perhaps, but then there is no point to doing anything drastic about it. :-)